Spin by Catherine McKenzie

Author:Catherine McKenzie
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

This Means War

The next morning, I get a furious email from Bob with a link to the Amber Alert site. They managed to get some photos of Amber and Connor on the lawn passing the football back and forth with Henry. Apparently, one of the visitors took the photos with a cell phone and sold them to the highest bidder.

How come you didn’t tell me that they were back together? Bob writes. I can imagine the angry stab of his fingers against the keys. What am I paying you for?

Christ. What does this man want from me? Isn’t it enough that I have to expose the inner workings of my brain, deal with attempted suicides, and act as a spy?

Bob, sorry for not keeping you up-to-date. They’re definitely back together, but if you print what I’m about to tell you, it’ll blow my cover. Anyway, here’s what’s been going on . . .

I type a long description of their midnight reunion and their odd way of communicating in Esperanto. When I’m done, my fingers hurt, and I have a sharp pain between my eyes from staring at the vivid screen for so long. I also feel empty and guilty, but I’m getting used to those feelings.

Bob’s reply is almost instantaneous. Apology accepted. Keep up the good work.

I stick my tongue out at the screen and turn off the iTouch. Time for my punishment.

“Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Do you feel ready to do that?” Saundra asks me on Day Seventeen: Admitting Our Faults and Forgiving Ourselves.

I bite my thumb, not liking the sounds of this. “You really don’t think that royal ‘we’ thing is weird at all?”

“Please stop deflecting, Katie.”

“Sorry. I’ve just been feeling . . . down since my friends left.”

I mean, how would you feel if the most interesting thing you’d done in the last eight years is drink enough for half your friends to believe you need to be in rehab?

“Why, do you think?”

I look at Saundra’s kind, expectant face, waiting for me to serve up an answer.

“Maybe it’s because I’m not sure any of this is working.”

“That any of what is working?”

My life. My head. My heart.

“This. Rehab. Therapy. Group. Nobody seems to be getting any better. Not The Producer or The Former Child Star, or anyone.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because they all still talk about drugs and alcohol like they’re describing a lover they wish they could get back.”

“What patients talk about in group isn’t the only measure of whether they’re getting better.”

“It’s the only thing I see.”

“Perhaps that’s your problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, besides Amber, you don’t seem to have connected with any of the other patients.”

I cross my arms across my chest. “I liked Amy.”

“Amy’s not here anymore.”

“But I don’t feel like I have anything in common with them.”

“You have your disease in common.”

“So, if I had cancer, I’d have to make friends with people on the cancer ward to get better?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“We all have to work together, Katie.

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